What Are the Expectations of a Modern Manufacturing Leader?

In today’s rapidly evolving manufacturing landscape, you need to be continually assessing your leadership style and environment to ensure you are remaining in tune with the needs of your customers, your team and the overall business.?

You need to have your finger on the pulse. People and cultures are continually evolving, technology development feels like it’s moving at a faster pace than it has ever done, the global marketplace is shifting in many directions, and customer expectations are always on the increase. What delighted your customers a few years ago, has now become a norm, and an expectation of your day-to-day relationship with them.?

It’s tough being a leader of a UK manufacturing business. Modern leaders are expected to embody a diverse set of skills and attributes to continually drive their organisations forward. And these leadership skills and attributes evolve over time. Take your eye off the ball for a moment, and you’re lagging behind, and we all know what it feels like to be constantly playing catch up. Like you’re not doing a good enough job, and you’re not leading your business well enough.?

To help leaders in the UK manufacturing industry benchmark themselves, we have taken over a decade’s worth of data from hundreds of successful manufacturing leaders and highlighted five key categories that define the expectations of a modern manufacturing leader.

1) Clarity of Purpose, Vision & Strategy

A modern manufacturing leader must have a clear and compelling vision for the future that they bring to life and inspire their team with. Are you a visionary leader with a passion and purpose that always aligns to a greater goal??

• Purposeful. People and cultures in the modern world are inspired by purposeful leadership. They want to work for leaders that want to make a positive difference in the world and make showing up for work meaningful.??

• Authentic. People want to work for real and down to earth leaders. Leaders that are honest and open about their strengths and weaknesses. Demonstrating a genuine passion for the business, its products, services, and people.??

• Strategic. Strategic planning is essential, requiring leaders to allocate time to plan ahead, set clear priorities, and think critically about the company’s strategy. You need to understand market conditions, competitive landscapes, and potential challenges, staying informed about how their business differentiates itself and preparing for future changes in technology, competition, and socio-political factors.?

• Time Management. Are you working in or on your business? So many business leaders fall short here. They do not allocate enough time to plan ahead and futureproof the business. You must protect your calendar to focus on high-impact activities and ensure everyone is in alignment with overall business priorities.?

2) Managing & Developing People

Leaders in the manufacturing industry must excel in managing and developing their teams. Are you coaching and empowering people and teams by making sure their expectations are clear and their development needs are met??

• Empathic. Empathy and understanding are crucial, as leaders should be non-judgmental and compassionate, making it easy for team members to feel safe in communicating openly. People want to feel listened to, and value being heard by leaders.?

• Coaching Skills. Effective coaching skills are vital, with leaders being curious and motivated to unlock the potential in others, you should be asking great questions, and providing supportive developmental conversations, over telling people what to do.??

• Delegator. Without great coaching skills you can get caught in overloading yourself with tasks, therefore delegation is another key aspect, involving trusting team members, communicating responsibilities clearly, and letting go of tasks to empower others.?

• Assertive. Often confused with being shouty and aggressive, assertiveness is about calmly and confidently being clear with goals and expectations and holding people accountable to their commitments. Speaking openly and honestly with people in a timely manner and not holding anything back.

3) High Performing Team

Building and maintaining a high-performing team is crucial for modern manufacturing leaders. Do your authentic leadership qualities inspire, motivate and ultimately deliver high performance from a cohesive team??

• Vulnerability Based Trust. The foundation for a high performing team involves fostering vulnerability-based trust, by being authentic and open about your vulnerabilities, encouraging a culture of openness and trust within the team.??

• Healthy Levels of Challenge. Leaders should challenge their teams in a healthy way, fostering growth and learning while maintaining a supportive environment. A tough balance to maintain but hugely rewarding when you get this right. Being as equally supportive as you are challenging.?

• Embraces Diversity. Embracing diversity and fostering a collaborative team culture are essential, ensuring that different perspectives are valued and that everyone feels welcome. Inclusivity presents so many opportunities for manufacturing businesses with a modern mindset, unlocking streams of different pools to enter into the workforce.?

• Teamwork. High performing teams need team players and people who are bought into the collective vision, values and goals of the business. Leaders need to encourage teamwork and cohesiveness over individual egoistical divergence.

4) Delivering Results

Achieving and maintaining successful results is a key expectation for any leader. Are you a great leader delivering results through your people, without the need to continually tell them what to do??

• Organised. Leaders must be organised, structured, and able to prioritise effectively to deliver great results, avoiding crises by staying ahead of potential issues. There are many things to juggle in a manufacturing landscape, and you need the skills to know how to prioritise your own time and efforts.?

• Changemaker. You should continuously explore and implement new technologies and ways of working to improve business performance, bringing energy and enthusiasm to situations that need change. Leaders should empower others and be great delegators, but sometimes you need to know when to step in and be the catalyst yourself.?

• Decisive. Decisiveness is crucial, with leaders making timely and tough decisions, avoiding procrastination, and ensuring their decisions align with the overall success of the business. When the time calls for it people will expect you to make the call. People don’t expect leaders to always be right, they just expect honesty and to make a choice over doing nothing.?

• Excellent Communicator. You need to be able to establish rapport with everyone you meet and be able to flex your communication style to suit many different types of people. People value being listened to over people who speak exceptionally well. Be a great listener and make your communications clear when you do speak.

5) Growth Mindset

A modern manufacturing leader should embody a growth mindset. Are you open minded and curious, with a healthy attitude towards yours and your teams personal growth??

• Open Minded. This includes being open-minded, curious, and continuously seeking ways to improve themselves and the business. With such a diverse range of changes across the manufacturing landscape, you need to be to all possibilities.?

• Resilience. Resilience is also important, with leaders bouncing back easily from setbacks, and maintaining a focus on the priorities of the business. You need to be able to take the knocks and get back up again. You will have many. This is unavoidable leading a business.?

• Self Confidence. Confidence is key, as leaders should handle criticism well, remain balanced, and continue to believe in their own ability over what other people think. It today’s world it is easy to get caught up in in the noise of what other people are doing, and what other people are saying, but you need to focus on you, your strengths and what you believe in.?

• Optimistic. Optimistic leaders embrace challenges and maintain a positive outlook in the toughest of circumstances. You need to be able to bring hope to situations and radiate positivity and possibility towards your team.?

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What Should I Do if I Don’t Currently Possess All of the Above Leadership Traits??

By embracing a growth mindset and continually putting effort into excelling in these leadership traits, you will drive your team and organisation towards sustained success and innovation. Avoiding common pitfalls such as lack of clear vision, inadequate strategic planning, poor market awareness, lack of empathy, ineffective coaching, poor delegation, lack of trust, avoiding healthy challenges, ignoring diversity, disorganisation, resistance to change, indecisiveness, closed-mindedness, lack of resilience, and overconfidence is essential for effective leadership in the manufacturing sector.?

If you wanted to take a free and quick Modern Manufacturing Leadership Quiz to assess yourself and see where you are starting from, we have built a scorecard from all of the data above to help manufacturing leaders accelerate their development. It takes approx. 4 minutes and provides and free report with some thoughts on next steps. Do you have what is takes to be a modern leader? Find out by taking the quiz.?